


Endings and Beginnings

by BluCup



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Reality, Fantasy Based on Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-11-14 09:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11204862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluCup/pseuds/BluCup
Summary: You ever get that feeling as a kid that there was something under your bed or hiding in your closet? That there was something following you as you started to leave one room to go to another, so you hurried to your destination? How about those noises that you heard while you were alone? For most, it was just paranoia or the imagination of a child running away with them. But in my reality, more often than not when someone got that feeling, it usually panned out to be more than just their mind playing tricks on them.My name is Arthur Cromwell, or Art for short. I have a few hours to kill before I have to hit the road again, so I'd like to fill whomever will lend me their ear in on how this all started. I'd like to tell you how my reality is much like yours, but also so very, very different.





	1. Prologue

You ever get that feeling as a kid that there was something under your bed or hiding in your closet? That there was something following you as you started to leave one room to go to another, so you hurried to your destination? How about those noises that you heard while you were alone? For most, it was just paranoia or the imagination of a child running away with them. But in my reality, more often than not when someone got that feeling, it usually panned out to be more than just their mind playing tricks on them.

My name is Arthur Cromwell, or Art for short. I have a few hours to kill before I have to hit the road again, so I'd like to fill whomever will lend me their ear in on how this all started. I'd like to tell you how my reality is much like yours, but also so very, very different.

~REMINISCENCE~

It all started about 17 years ago. It was a new millennium and we were all enjoying ourselves after the threat of a nuclear fallout had passed with Y2K being a big non-event, or so we thought at least.  
Springtime rolled around and it was absolutely perfect; I can still remember the smell of the flowers in the air, the new leaves that covered the trees and the dark heavy shadows they cast after two seasons of naught. The air was crisp and there was a light breeze. Weather-wise it could not get much better than that, and for the twelve-year old me, life was good. Life was full of adventure and... very confusing feelings that I had not yet grasped just yet, but more on that later.

I was hanging out with my friends in the local arcade on Main Street. Yeah, we still had one of those and for its time it was fairly modern. I played the crap out of the Lost World: Jurassic Park game.  
My oldest friend - both in age and the duration of which I knew him - was Corey "Core" Mcavry. Fifteen years old, he stood a few inches taller than the rest of us and he had his own job. He was a quiet guy, didn't have any friends besides us and so he used the money he earned helping his father out after school to fund our adventures. It was never necessary, but he insisted anyway.  
Then there was Dalton Alan Lee. The new-ish guy. At fourteen, he was the loudmouth of the group. Puberty was hitting him hard, but that wasn't his only issue. Always boisterous and wanting to start trouble where there shouldn't have been any. He always took advantage of Core's generosity, but at the same time it always ended up benefitting the group in some way in the end, so we were perplexed half the time as to whether or not we should be hanging out with him. I was always butting heads with him for reasons that I, at twelve years old, did not understand. It's only now as I edge the big three-O that I understand why I was so eager to fight this guy, and that was because of her.  
Autumn Elizabeth Laurel. She, like Corey, had been a close friend for as long as I can remember. We pretty much grew up together as she was always staying at my house for weeks at a time while her parents went out of town on business. She was born on the same day as me, September 22nd, but a year apart. She was always more mature than me; kinda like an older sister. She was smart and always found ways to talk down a situation after Dalton(or me) blew it up. Her long auburn hair and warm brown eyes made her look distinguished, even at thirteen years of age. Why she chose to be part of our oddball group I still don't understand, but I was happy she was around. Whenever I looked at her or was around her, I felt funny. I couldn't describe it and I never told anyone what triggered it, and so I ended up in the nurses office several times on account of it. At twelve years old, I didn't want to think about girls in that way, yet my heart had different plans for me, and so did Dalton's.

You see, I think Dalton also had "feelings" for Autumn, but being older he was more in-tune with them than I was and knew exactly what he was feeling. So when he would try and impress Autumn - be it by buying her something or walking close to her - I would feel an odd sense of jealously and start an argument with him out of the blue, and the worst part of it was: I had no idea why. I always asked myself "Why?" after the fact. Why did I just yell at my friend? Because he was walking too close to another friend? I didn't feel that way when him and Corey were paling around, why did it matter so much that it was Autumn? These were questions that plagued me every single time; Questions that kept me up at night... Looking back on it now, I wish those were the only things I had keeping me up at night.

As I mentioned earlier, Core, Autumn, Dalton and I were hanging out at the arcade on one perfect spring day. Not a care in the world other than running out of our machine funds. Corey always saved a twenty dollar bill for the arcade that we could exchange for quarters. We each took five dollars worth and headed off on our own... Sometimes. There would be times where we'd play against or with each other. Only after the last of the quarters had been used up did we all leave-- Together. We always did everything as a group, we butted heads at times but we always stuck together. I never wanted it to end.

It ended that day.

While Dalton and I were going at it head to head in King of Fighters '99, all hell was breaking loose just outside the doors of the arcade. We were all too oblivious to it, thanks to the loud arcade environment.

Now before I go into detail about the events of this day, allow me to preface it with this: In my reality, monsters and magic exist. The former have coexisted with humans for millenia and never presented any more of a problem than a bear or a mountain lion. The latter is just something everyone is capable of but no one really questions why or how. It's so rarely used in this day and age that most people forget about it. It is used so infrequently in modern day that there have been reports of children being born that do not possess the ability to use it. That, unfortunately, may end up being our downfall as a species.

Outside the doors of the arcade, down Main Street, through town, across America and all over the world, an uprising of a global scale was taking place. Not by terrorist groups, but by the very monsters that lived amongst us. The very creatures that for as long as history has been recorded, rarely harmed other beings; animal or human, were now running amok all over the world, unprovoked and thirsty for blood.  
People were screaming for help as monsters of all species and sizes suddenly turned against them. Ripping into the flesh and breaking bone with hardly a shred of mercy for their prey. Not once hesitating as they snatched the young from their panicked parents. Running the slow moving elderly down and ripping them limb from limb.  
The world had fallen to chaos in the past hour, and it was finally hitting my little town in the mountain.

Just as I was about to land the final blow on Dalton, a man came crashing through the glass doors of the arcade, landing in a heap of shredded flesh and a puddle of blood that quickly ran across the stone tiled flooring of the arcade. We barely had a chance to react before a Kobolt leapt through the broken sliding door, sending the rest of its twisted frame flying inward; spraying bloodstained glass everywhere.  
The beast, which stood four feet tall on all fours and would probably be well over seven on its hind legs, stood proudly over its kill. It's tan skin covered only a few patches of its mange-ridden body. The skin on its head was so pale and dry that it appeared as if it's skull was exposed. The fact that this species typically had eyes set far back in it's skull made it look that much more menacing.  
It looked at my group, its long slender tongue dangling helplessly out of its mouth. It growled and snapped at us as it crept closer and closer, ignoring it's most recent kill. A nameless man whom I can still see the remains of twitching as I recall this particular moment, even after all these years and the many, many more horrific scenes that I've seen since then.  
The monster was positioning itself, it was preparing to pounce. It was going to snatch one of us in its jaw and that was going to be it. I was scared. Motionless. I couldn't believe that I or one of my friends were going to die in the next few seconds. What was happening?! The beast pounced, but a glowing red and orange ball of light met it mid-air.  
Where did it come from I wondered, but no sooner did I begin to ask did Autumn move out from behind the group and signaled the rest of us to follow. We did without hesitation, like whenever she would tell us to do something. Because she was always right, even if our pigheadedness made us argue it from time to time. She was clearly the smartest of the group, so when she said jump, we'd ask how high.  
We dashed past the downed beast, the apparent fireball knocking it dead. I could its skin sizzling and popping as we fled outside the arcade and into the streets, but what we ended up seeing shook us to our core.  
There were monsters everywhere. Big and small, crawling in and out of buildings. Dragging people through the streets or swooping down from the sky and snatching them up. We started to move to the right at first, but as we did a mother and her young daughter came around the corner, a pack of kobolts chased them down and mauled the two to death without hesitation. Blood sprayed everywhere and limbs flew as the once docile creatures shook the still screaming victims in their massive maws. We turned and ran in the opposite direction, down the street until we hit the first intersection. It was here that a huge scaled bird swooped down at us, then perched on top of the stoplight directly ahead of us. Its black, soulless eyes scanned us. No one wanted to move, but we forced ourselves to the left and down the hill in the direction of the multi-tiered parking deck. Screams of bloody murder all around us, but our fear driven escape kept our adrenaline rushing and our feet moving.

All around was chaos. Smoke streaming out of buildings and burning cars littered the streets of my hometown. All I could think of as my feet propelled me forward was how all this could have happened in such a short amount of time. I snapped to and was able to get myself in the here and now, that's when I started to ask, well more like yell, a question. I asked if anyone had seen where that fireball had come from back at the arcade. Before I could finish, Autumn grabbed me by the shirt collar and yanked me to the left, pulling me into the covered parking garage. Dalton and Corey followed suit. We took cover in the small guardhouse that sat at the southern entrance to the garage. The guard pole was already up and there were blood splattered against it, yet no sign of a struggle anywhere else.

At this point, you can probably tell that my memory can sometimes be a bit too good; There are so many details from that day that I have such vivid memories of that it has become a curse. This crap keeps me up at night. I wake up in cold sweat sometimes, other times I have nightmares. You'd think that after so many experiences like this in the near twenty years since the uprising that I would have grown accustomed to it, but it never gets any easier...

We all hunkered down inside the guardhouse, the four of us trying to squeeze in together underneath the desk that sat beneath the huge sheet of glass that made up three of the four upper walls of the small building. It seemed that whomever had been running the toll booth that day had left in a hurry but didn't get very far.  
There we all sat, four kids shaken to their core and huddled together, holding back tears and just wishing we could be with our families. We dare not even think about their fates right now. We couldn't. We couldn't think PERIOD. There was so much noise going on around us; from growling, roaring and screeching of the monsters to the sirens and gunshots from the police and other emergency responders. I'm pretty sure I heard a few explosions too. Everything had gone to crap and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.  
An hour or two had passed before any of us began to speak to each other again. Corey remained his usual quiet self, though his dark complexion had become increasingly pale. Autumn held his hands in hers and tried comforting him. I for some reason wanted her to hold my hands too, for her to talk to me in that warm voice and tell me that it was going to be all right, but I knew that it wasn't going to be, and that I only wanted that because it was Autumn. I didn't know WHY I wanted it though, and that just added another twist upon my stomach that was already in a knot so tight that it you could climb Mt. Everest with it.  
"We can't stay here." I remember Dalton saying, trying to sound brave. Wanting to impress us. Core wasn't having any of it, and contrary to what he was hoping for, Autumn definitely wasn't either. The two argued quietly, all the while I felt a sick sense of pleasure out of it. Again, why? Why me.  
Before I could interject my opinion into the argument, we were cut short but a thump. Another explosion? A second one shook us, this one even closer. Then a third immediately after, then another. Each one getting louder and louder. The very ground beneath us shook with a thunderous boom. It wasn't explosions, but footsteps. I slowly rose up high enough to just peak over the desk and out into the streets. What I saw before me caused the blood to drain out from my face almost instantly. I felt feint.  
A freaking Behevolth had made its way down from the mountains and into town. These huge, bipedal subspecies of the kobolt typically stuck to the caves at higher elevations, but here it was: Standing proudly in the middle of the street that I used to play in, nearly two stories tall. It's huge shaggy tail wagging back and forth as it sniffed the air. It became apparent to me instantly why there were no remains left behind. The poor soul had been swallowed whole, spraying only a small amount of blood as the beast bit down and chewed before sliding down its throat.  
I could hear Dalton asking me what it was, over and over again. I was too shook to respond. I didn't want to move. I couldn't move. Frozen with fear of the large, gray-blue furred bipedal dog-like monster that stood before me. I haven't seen one since that day, and I hope to never see one again for as long as I live.  
Before I mustered up the energy to move back underneath the table, its head snapped downward. It's large black bulbous nose that stood at the end of its elongated snout huffed loudly. I thought for sure it had caught our scent and that we were goners for sure. What were a bunch of kids in the face of one of these things? Luckily, it was the sweet scene of drying blood on the guard pole that it smelt. After it had licked the remainder off the pole, it returned to it's erect position, still surveying the chaos around it.

It stood there for a good thirty minutes before giving chase to a cop car that came speeding past, and so I took that opportunity to finally move back underneath the desk with my friends.  
My throat and mouth were bone dry, but I was able to muster up enough saliva to speak. I told them what it was I had seen, what had frozen me in place so bad that I probably appeared dead, or completely paralyzed. 

Autumn began to whisper, saying that despite her earlier protests that that we couldn't stay here any longer, not with a behevolth in the area. That we were going to have to move to a safer location soon, She was right in suggesting it, even if I was too scared to agree with her at the time; the behevolth would probably make the parking garage its temporary den once the sun went down, then we'd really be in trouble.  
She surprised everyone with the revelation she dropped on us next. She held out her palm, and the center began to glow. She revealed that she has had an unusually high affinity for magic, and thus has been training in secret for years now to fine tune it and to keep the ability active in her blood. The fireball that had killed the kobolt earlier, blowing its head clean off and charring the rest of its body, had come from her hand. Magic THAT destructive just simply did not exist these days, and looking back it's no wonder she kept this a secret from everyone. I wonder if her parents even knew? She told us she knew a few direct and indirect spells that she could use if we all decided to make a run for the nearest building. Dalton and I just stared at each other, both of us wanting to agree with Autumn's plan but too chicken to vocally do so.  
"I'll follow you, Autumn. I trust you." Said Corey, about to break into tears.  
Dalton and I both knew that Mac trusted very few people in his life, but if he was certain that Autumn could get us to safety with her magic, then we would go along as well. We were all friends here, and whatever the plan was, we would all do it together even if the mere thought made us pee a little.

We crawled around, looking over the small shed-like building for anything we might be able to use as a weapon. Dalton found knife in the desk drawer. "Lucky." I remember thinking before I found a hammer in the nearby locker. Corey was going out unarmed as there was nothing else for him. At the back of my mind, I really wanted to give him my hammer, but I just couldn't part with it knowing what we were about to do.  
Autumn's palms began to glow a soft blue light this time, then a blue transparent orb appeared that grew quickly and wrapped around each of us like a cellophane wrapper before fading away. "It's a weak barrier spell" she said. These were spells that toughened the skin with a thin magic barrier. I still didn't feel safe, and I was sure no one else did either, but it was better than nothing.  
I took one more peak above the desk, then went a little bit higher to scan the rest of the parking garage that was doused in shadows. There was nothing, the coast was clear.  
Autumn took point, much to mine and Dalton's protest, but she wasn't hearing any of it. She was better equipped to handle what's out there than any of us.  
She turned the doorknob as slowly and as quietly as possible, then immediately sparked another fireball in her one spare hand. Why only one? Because Corey was holding onto her other hand, and she held him tight.  
We all creeped out of the small building one by one, Scooby-Doo style. The feelings that I felt stepping out into the open like that after seeing the Behevolth earlier made me want to vomit. We were afterall going in the opposite direction of where the beast stood.  
All around us the screams still rang out, gunshots blasted through the sky while sirens and howls of many beasts acted as a bone chilling ambiance. Were we really witnessing the end of days? I wasn't sure what to think at the time. I just wanted to get somewhere safe, with my friends. With Autumn...

We stepped back out onto the street, the hot 4pm sun beat down on us and nearly blinded us after being in the dark for so long, but our eyes quickly adjusted and we scanned our surroundings. To our east stood a rather well enforced garage built of thick cinder blocks and framed with steel. The perfect places to hide out in and wait for help. The only problem was, it was a good ten minute walk away across open terrain. We had to cross a few streets and an intersection along the way, not that we had traffic to worry about. Oh no, we just had to worry about being run down by a pack of kobolts, snatched from sky by a Varrow Hawk or being swallowed whole by the Behevolth. Who knew what else had invaded the town? There was a good chance we were all going to die in a very horrific way on the way, but I didn't say a word. I just remember looking at the determined expression on Autumn's face as she cradled that fire spell in the palm of her hand.

No sooner did we come out past the parking garage did a pack of kobolts descend upon us. Five vicious skull-faced canines, each easily weighing over two-hundred pounds or more stood before us, snapping at and growling at us. We didn't even get to make an attempt at finding refuge, I began to scream silently, wanting to break down and cry. I didn't want to die like that, I didn't want to see my friends torn apart in front of me. It was at that moment that one of the beasts began to step toward us that I felt an intense heat, like the kind of heat you feel when you stick your face in an oven to check on a cake. It was gone in an instant and a huge, bright ball of swirling fire flew past me, past Dalton, in the direction of the pack of bloodthirsty monsters that stood before us.  
The ball hit the biggest one at the front the pack, ripping through its meaty body, incinerating it instantly. The ball of magical fire then exploded, sending a stream of superheated flames several feet back in a straight line, hitting another kobolt along the way, killing it instantly. The result was bits and pieces of the monsters scattered around an elongated crater that looked as if a meteor had touched down. The other kobolts fled temporarily, escaping the intense heat caused by the blast.  
I stood there in shock, having never seen magic like that anywhere but in movies. I then looked at Autumn, her face was flush and she was breathing heavily.  
"I held on... to that one... for longer than I should have." I remember her saying, huffing after every few words.  
I was awestruck. If reality hadn't set back in at the sound of the beasts howling to regroup, I would have been freaking out at how awesome that was to see in person, from a friend no less. This girl was awesome.

With no time to take in what we had just witnessed, we all made a mad dash across the field, across a street and to the intersection. We were about fifty feet out from the garage before the pack caught up with us. It was only then that I noticed that Autumn began to cast another spell; the same red-orange light from earlier was forming in the palm of her hand. I quickly noticed the tips of her fingers were blackened, an apparent side effect of using fire-type magic.  
I had no time to think about it. As I watched the ball of light grow in the palm of her hand, I felt my courage grow along with it. I stepped forward, towards the pack of massive canines and took the hammer in both hands and assumed a battle stance. I looked back at Dalton whom stood beside Corey with knife in hand and nodded at him to step forward. He did so, reluctantly.  
"Autumn," I remember saying, "Dalton and I will distract them. You hit them with a fireball when you get the chance." She nodded.  
What happened next still remains mostly a blur, but I remember all of the worst bits. Dalton and I rushed the pack, surprising them as they jumped back. I took a swing at one of the individuals that had been burnt earlier as it was slower, the back end of the hammer piercing its skull and causing it to drop dead with a loud whimper. I looked over my shoulder for just a half a second and saw Dalton pushing one of the beasts lifeless corpse off of him. He had driven his knife into the brain of the kobolt as it pounced. Though it killed the monster, he was now without means to fight back as the knife had gotten stuck in the beast's head.  
There was only one left now. This one was smaller than the rest. Probably young and inexperienced. Dalton and I stood side by side in front of Autumn. The beast rushed us and she yelled out telling us to move, so I went one way and Dalton went the other. The kobolt leapt into the air in Autumn's direction, it's gaping mouth dripping with a foul smelling saliva. It's pupils dialated, its adrenaline rushing.  
Autumn pushed her hand forward, her arm straightened. The red ball floating in her palm grew quicker than one could blink into the size of a grapefruit; A swirling dance of flames and sparks exploded from behind it as it shot off like a rocket right into the kobolt's open mouth, blowing its head off before flying down its throat and exploding in its stomach. Destroying the creature instantly in a brilliant aerial explosion.  
I stood up, dazed but alive. I looked at Dalton and smiled. He nodded and then walked back to the downed kobolt in hopes of dislodging his knife from its skull. I then turned to Autumn and smiled - and she smiled back. I felt so good for those few seconds, but it did not last. That warm smile that had beamed across her face had dropped and in it's place, complete and utter horror. Her eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped. I saw Corey drop her hand and bolt off in the direction of the garage. That's when I turned around...

What I saw. It's one of the two images that I have nightmares off to this day.

The Behevolth from earlier had heard the explosions and was making a mad dash to our location. The ground beneath us shook violently with each massive foot drop.  
"RUN!" I yelled.  
It roared.  
Autumn and I ran side by side, as fast as our legs could carry us. Past the body of the kobolt that I had killed. I didn't even notice Dalton was still trying to pull his knife out at the time. I was in panic mode and I only wanted to get to safety. The giant two-legged canine was closing in, it's claws slashing through the air. It almost sounded as if it was barking at us.  
Corey peaked out from under garage's shutters, opened just enough for someone to roll under. He screamed for us, urging us to run faster. I could see tears streaming from Autumn's eyes. I began to cry as I forced my legs to carry me forward, my chest and eyes burning hotter than any fire spell known to man. She began to outpace me.  
We made it to the garage. Autumn ducked down and Corey grabbed her and pulled her in quicker than she could have rolled in herself. He then yelled for me as I was still several feet away.  
That's when I noticed the footfalls of the enormous beast had stopped. 

Stopped before Dalton.

I stood there, at the garage entrance. Frozen with fear as Dalton frantically tried to pull the knife out of the downed kobolt. The towering Behevolth standing over him, a low grumble bellowing from deep within. Huge drops of foul, potentially bacteria-ridden saliva dropped from his enormous maw. I watched helplessly as the giant took a swipe at him, impaling the dead kobolt on its massive claw. It then swung it's arm, the dead kobolt's body sliding off of the razor sharp claws of the Behevolth and flying several dozen feet away.  
Dalton fell onto his back. He kept yelling for me. Yelling for help, asking me to distract it so that he could run. But I couldn't do it, I couldn't speak. My mouth was dry, my lungs were on fire. I was frozen. My own body had shut down and was forcing me to watch my friend be killed before my very eyes.  
"Please Art, do something. I don't want to die!" he yelled, his voice cracking out of pure unfiltered fear.  
...It was the first and only time I ever heard him heard him say "Please." in the eight years that we'd known each other.  
I was completely numb.  
The Behevolth raised its giant claw into the air, the sun beaming off of them like a super polished metal.  
I did not blink or wince as the reflected light caught me dead in the eye.  
It swung its claw sideways, catching Dalton whom had stood up and attempted to flee in one last panicked attempt. My eyes widened as his body flew across the street and into the nearby field. Blood sprayed into the air, then came back down in a crimson rain. His blood curdling screen turned into a gurgle, then fell silent.  
In my nightmares, that scene always proceeded the charging Behevolth.  
I fell to my knees and began to vomit uncontrollably.

As the beast turned to pursue its fallen prey, the sound of a heavy diesel engine could be heard plowing down the street that ran behind the garage. The beast barely had time to turn to face the sound before it was caught in the shoulder by a rocket fired by a soldier riding on the back of an army grade transport vehicle. The monster roared in pain as its arm dangled from burning cartilage and shattered bone. It stomped towards the group of soldiers as they pressed forward, fully automatic rifles unloading clip after clip into the beasts muscular body.  
I fell to my side, numb and in a trance. Everything began to go dark. Blood splattered, soldiers flew here and there. Some in multiple pieces as the now one-armed tyrant slaughtered them.

The last thing I remember before blacking out completely was the creature toppling over onto its side with a huge gaping hole in its chest. We made eye contact before we both lost consciousness. Only one of us was going to wake up, however.

 

The world changed that day, and nothing was ever going to be the same again.


	2. Chapter 1

Now a whopping seventeen years after what everyone calls "The Uprising", life has stabilized behind the walls of the thousands of "communities" scattered about the country. If you want a shot at something resembling that of your old life and lack the magic and combat skills, then you kinda want to be be boxed in one of these things.  
Walls can be moved and extended at the government's request, creating more room if need be for new residents, assuming the micro-ecosystem within can sustain them.  
Expanding the length of the walls creates additional problems for our defenses. The bigger an area is, the more there is to survey. The more there is to survey, the more it costs to pay monster hunters and repairmen to keep an eye on it. Our economy may have been on the rise in 2000 when Clinton was in the White House, but it quickly tanked when that first Behevolth strolled down from the hills and sliced up... Anyway. 

You're probably wondering what I have been doing these past seventeen years, eh? Well, I've been training. I joined the mercenary force known as The Hunters and was trained to use very basic magic spells, but more important than that I was trained how to use a sword- Not just any sword, but the Triggerblade; It's like a real-life version of the Gunblade from Final Fantasy VIII, the last great game to come out in that series before the world went to crap... It's a shame too because the ninth game looked really good.   
Life within a walled safezone inbetween missions can be incredibly dull though, so I've taken a part-time job at a local grocery market that had been repurposed by the army into a, well, it is still technically a grocery market, but... Yeah well I'm not completely sure just what it is but they sell weapons, ammunition and kevlar vests. It's pretty wild.   
"Thank you for shopping at Grocery Tiger, have a nice day." I said as waved another lucky survivor out the door.   
Yes, I'm a greeter. Not a bagger, not an office assistant or even a cashier. I. Am. A. GREETER. They don't pay me in cash either, but credits. Credits used only at the Grocery Tiger chain that is all over the northeast, found only within walled safezones. You exchange credits for goods. That's it. I suppose I understand it though, physical money isn't as valuable these days.  
"Thank you for shopping at Grocery Tiger." Another miserable looking customer exited the once happy - as happy as a retail job can be that is - workplace. I remember the way the store was back before there was a huge stockpile of ammunition crates and armed guards standing around it where the produce section once stood.   
"Thank you for-"   
"Arthur, can you come to the office please." A angry sounding voice said over the little earpiece in my left ear.   
My "boss". An angry man, but a respectable one, kinda. From what I understand, he was the leader of a pack of hunters within one of the many Merc factions, but was offered a job within the army. He accepted without hesitation, but little did he know that it was to manage one of the Grocery Tiger stores. Hehe.  
I left my wobbly brown stool and made my way to the tiny office at the front of the store. There Mr. Forsch stood there, cross-armed. His square head glowing a bright red. He was angry, I wonder what I did. "You have a phone call." He thrust a portable phone my way. I took it gently from his hand and he returned to his cross-armed stance, staring at me intently.  
"Hello?" I answered and was met with a very formal, strong and direct sounding voice on the other end. An army general from the sound of it. Now it made sense why my boss looked angry. "Yes sir," I replied. As a lone wolf merc of somewhat noteable skill, they wanted me for a job ouside the northern wall. A monster hunt. And they wanted me out there as soon as possible. Obviously looking at my bosses' face, he was furious that - as someone with actual military training - that his own door greeter was called to duty instead of him must have twisted his pickle something fierce. I love it.   
"I'll do my best, sir." I said as I ended the call and handed the phone back to my boss. "Judging by the look on your face and that lovely red glow, you already know the deal, so I'mma go, 'kay? 'kay." Finally, a reason to get out of here. I probably won't have a job to come back to given that crack just now, but oh well. I liked the cashiers well enough but the management team were butts. Plus I should be able to live comfortably for a while with the earnings from this hunt.  
I removed my name tag, handed it to my boss and proceeded to make my way down the line of registers, not unlike a celebrity making their way down the aisle of a studio audience, shaking hands and greeting fans as they went.   
I bid a farewell to each one, some that had become good friends in the time I had been here. I shook the hands of each cashier as I went, except for one. The one male cashier on duty today was a real asscave, but that's a story for another time. My hand went up like a toll booth gate as I passed his register, then back down immediately to shake a warm farewell to the girl behind him, and then I made my way out the door, but not before making a final bow.  
Of course, with me making a show out of it I forgot to clock out. I had to awkardly re-enter the store, make my way to the computer, enter my digits and then clock out. Then I left, my former boss still staring me down. Yikes.

Made my way across town on foot. Saying town makes it seem like a much bigger space than it actually is. You can get to one side of the enclosure from the opposite end in about an hour's time on foot. This is one of the smaller sections though and they can and do get much bigger; I think the biggest enclosure is located in Michigan and houses a good five-thousand+ people. Pretty crazy. I can't imagine being sandwiched in such a small area with that many people. Heck, I struggle with the five-hundred-something that's within mine.

Back home, I make my way through the dump that is my family's home. No one is around thankfully, not that'd care what I was doing either way.   
I removed my tacky Grocery Tiger uniform, leaving only the white t-shirt underneath, which I promptly covered with a black sleeveless hoodie. I kicked off my cheap work shoes and equipped my good ones in their place. Then from the corner, behind my headboard, I grabbed my trusty weapon: The Triggerblade. Hanging from sheath is a single round of bullets. .44 Magnum rounds to be precise, the strongest known trigger in this weapon class.   
Once I stepped back out into the midday sun, I attached the sheath to my hip. Then removed the actual weapon itself from its housing. The trigger looked like that of a modified Magnum Colt Python. The handle was made long enough to be held with two hands like a normal sword, but at a slight angle. It was decorated with   
The blade was close to fifty-inches long, one-sided. It stretched out well beyond the muzzle of the gun part, stopped at a very fine point, then came back in fine straight line with the width of the blade widening before coming to a halt right before the revolver. It was a fine weapon, and not one to easily fire mid-fight due to the power of the trigger.   
I spent years learning how to use this thing effectively, and while I'm not -the- best with it, I rank pretty high up there on a list of less than one hundred registered wielders of the blasted thing.   
"All right, now time to report to the northern exit for my mission briefing."


End file.
